Iron Making in the Olden Times as Instanced in the Ancient Mines Forges and Furnaces of the Forest of Dean

In this fully illustrated book the Rev. H. G. Nicholls M.A. studies the historical evidence of the Iron Ore Mining in the Forest of Dean from the earliest times. The book contains these words in the introduction:In the year 1780 wrote Mr. Wyrrall in his valuable MS. on the ancient iron works of the Forest:-There are deep in the earth vast caverns scooped out by men's hands and large as the aisles of churches; and on its surface are extensive labyrinths worked among the rocks and now long since overgrown with woods which whosoever traces them must see with astonishment and incline to think them to have been the work of armies rather than of private labourers. They certainly were the toil of many centuries and this perhaps before they thought of searching in the bowels of the earth for their ore-whither however they at length naturally pursued the veins as they found them to be exhausted near the surface.